


First Christmas

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Bottom Sam, Christmas Fluff, Depression, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Miscommunication, Retirement, Soulmates, Therapy, Top Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 20:05:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13131153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: After Sam almost takes his own life after the trials, Sam and Dean slow down and stop hunting. They heal each other, but they're not perfect. A year and a half after they unofficially retired, Sam wants to have a Christmas, but it won't come easily. Their first real Christmas is something of an event. Hurt/comfort, heavy on the comfort.





	First Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't sign up for the SPN J2 Xmas Exchange in time, so consider this fic a gift to everyone <3
> 
> Also, this is canon divergent, and explained in the fic, but basically, Sam closed hell, he was in a coma, he woke up, shit was still bad, blew up in their faces. So it's pretty close to canon up until season nine (except with more incestuous buttfucking), and then I got my dirty hands all over it :)
> 
> Small warning--there are some small references to the past that could be interpreted as Dean critical, but it's from Sam's POV about all of their issues, so he's critical of himself, too. I write to fix canon and to be honest so it all comes from a love for the boys.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

Sam woke up with his toes curling and his tummy tingling.

 

Eyes still closed, still partly asleep, Sam sighed into the feelings that made his back and hips roll in a small, lazy wave.

 

He gasped, muscles contracting, and the warm come splashing onto his tummy woke him up the rest of the way.

 

He looked to his left to find Dean propped up on his elbow, watching Sam with a lidded, amused expression while Dean stroked him through the aftershocks.

 

Sam’s boxers had been pulled down to his thighs, and he wiggled them all the way off, kicking them to the end of the bed. He reached into Dean’s boxers to return the favor, but Dean was already at it. He added his hand to Dean’s, and Dean closed his eye and tilted his head back, revealing his throat.

 

Sam kissed and nibbled at Dean’s adam’s apple just as Dean swore quietly, grunting and coming.

 

They both flopped onto their backs, staring up at the ceiling and getting their breaths back. Sam was definitely wide awake now.

 

They lay there in silence for several beats. There was nothing on the calendar for today, nothing urgent, so Sam’s usual OCD wasn’t forcing him out of bed with an early morning alarm. No, today, they could have this. They’d more than earned it.

 

Dean broke the silence with a small chuckle and a “good mornin’, Sammy.”

 

Sam smiled at the ceiling “Mornin’.”

 

And thus began their day.

 

***

 

Half an hour later, Sam’s breath was minty-fresh, his bed head contained for the time being, and he was clothed in soft, worn, plaid pajamas bottoms and one of Dean’s old concert tees. Dean was in similar attire, standing in front of the stove and scrambling some eggs. The toaster popped to his left and Sam got up from the kitchen table to start buttering toast.

 

They worked next to each other in a comfortable quiet, Dean humming some off-key song under his breath while he scraped eggs onto plates. Sam finished putting jam on the toast- a thick layer of strawberry for Dean and a scraping of raspberry for himself- and put the slices onto the plates next to the eggs.

 

They sat down and dug in, drinking freshly brewed coffee as they ate. Dean didn’t take his black anymore, but he still mocked Sam for his vanilla-filled, whipped cream-covered concoctions.

 

The coffee maker was the best gift Sam had ever received. He had gotten it a few days after his birthday, which they didn’t celebrate, and it marked a year since their unofficial retirement, and each cup it brewed made Sam endlessly grateful for the life he had now.

 

It had not always been this good. Obviously. The majority of Sam’s life was one fucked up thing after another. In a linear timeline, the greater part of his existence was spent in the deepest circle of hell with a very bored and very scorned pair of archangels.

 

But Sam didn’t like to think about that. No, when he thought back on the life he had before this, he usually thought about the terrible hallucinations, losing his brother to purgatory, and the strained year that followed.

 

The fucking trials. God.

 

Neither of them could quite convince themselves the gates of hell were actually closed, and that the last of the demons left on Earth were being picked off by capable hunters other than themselves. The lack of personal intervention in fate’s plans was a little weird.

 

It didn’t come easily. Sam was depressed throughout the entire trials, convinced Dean didn’t love him, the world didn’t need him, and that it would never get better. He’d been blamed for ending the world for ages, and hearing Dean damn him for his time with Ruby after Dean had been with Benny stung badly.

 

He just wasn’t worth anything anymore to anyone. He was very tired. He didn’t want life anymore, didn’t enjoy existing. When the trials started giving him cancer-like symptoms, he welcomed them. When his body became frail and his vision started to go, he embraced it. When he cured Crowley and shut the doors to hell himself, trembling in a halo and painful, white light, he closed his eyes and let the light swallow him up.

 

But Dean didn’t let him go. Dean came just then, just as the final lock clicked into place and sealed hell off. He held Sam, shaking him, begging him to wake up, to come back to him.

 

He drove Sam to the nearest hospital, and they flew him to the nearest long-term care unit. Lots of the smartest doctors in the country said he’d be in a coma forever, and asked Dean if he’d like to pull the plug.

 

Dean refused. Dean sat by his bedside and read to him. Dean spoke to him, reminiscing about the good times and awkwardly apologizing about the bad.

 

As time went by, and as demons were killed off across the globe, Sam’s body healed. Through the care of the nurses at his permanent care facility, he gained weight. His hair grew back. And he woke up.

 

It wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d sworn the trials were supposed to kill him. But he woke up all the same. And Dean was right there by his side when he awoke, welcoming him back to consciousness after two months in a coma.

 

It took a long time for Sam to even remember what had happened. He wandered around, following Dean from minor hunt to minor hunt in a daze. He felt like he’d just woken up for weeks after coming out of the coma and going through physical therapy and being released back into the wild.

 

He wasn’t in proper shape to be hunting, not yet--he was still emaciated and hardly ate, but Dean was diligent in killing and chasing away all of their unspoken problems.

 

Sam did not operate the same way, though, not by a mile, and when memories started to come back of the trials and their stressed, fucked up on-and-off-again relationship, Sam also remembered why he’d liked the trials so much.

 

It built and built and built inside of him. He drank but did not eat. It all blew up in his face when he made a simple mistake on a hunt due to lightheadedness and almost died. Dean went off on him and Sam went off worse, gun in hand, barrel begging to be placed under his own chin, finger on the trigger.

 

Now, Sam could remember so clearly how still and quiet Dean had gone, how large his eyes had gone. The talk that ensued, with Dean creeping closer and taking the bullets out of Sam’s gun and hiding it, did not solve things, but it was certainly a first step.

 

It turned out he had a lot more buried than he’d realized. They stopped hunting. Dean was his unofficial therapist for a while, and they sometimes prayed to Cas, but heaven was closed now, too, and he never came. They went back to the bunker, signed Sam up with a local therapist under a fake name, and things sort of… happened from there.

 

Sam had never talked about how much it hurt to not be trusted because of his blood and because of the things he’d done. Sam had never talked about how something inside him closed up every time Dean hit him or called him a girl. Sam had never talked about how sometimes he didn’t feel like he was good enough or human enough to be allowed to eat or exercise or read. Sam had never talked about the way Meg and Lucifer had touched him and dirtied him and how he felt about his body. Sam had never been given names for the things that kept him up at night, and it was a pretty long laundry list: depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, self-harm, post-traumatic stress disorder, depersonalization and derealization, obsessive compulsive disorder, on and on. He was thirty five pounds underweight.

 

It took the medication and the constant late night talks and the tentative touches that had become so unfamiliar for Dean to really digest it all. He hadn’t realized how deep the hole Sam dug himself into was.

 

Dean wasn’t okay, either, not at all. Their lives had not done them any favors, and after a lot of resistance, Dean started going to therapy, too. Sam almost felt bad for their therapist. She had her hands full between the two of them.

 

It took a long time, but they were both able to at least admit their failures and shortcomings. Dean apologized for a lot of things. Dean started treating Sam like glass, walking around him like thin ice, and that hurt, too, but Sam didn’t bury it this time. They talked and cried and watched stupid movies and touched and kissed and fucked.

 

Sam looked down at his eggs, trying not to show on his face the retrospective and somehow hot direction his thoughts had gone in.

 

Dean hadn’t fucked Sam in over two and a half years before they finally had sex again. It had all stopped after the wall in Sam’s head went down, and before then, there had been more cold, lonely beds than warm ones. Their relationship hadn’t had any sort of consistency and “health” of any dubious sort to it since before Dean had gone to hell.

 

Sam hadn’t had sex with anyone but Dean since Ruby, and Dean admitted feeling a pull to Benny, but they’d never fucked, either. Dean had been with a few girls, and they had all been one night stands.

 

The sex wasn’t that great at first, mostly desperate and rough and life-affirming, but after they’d been at the bunker and going to Dr. Montgomery’s for a while, it became incredible.

 

Sam had been so scared that his body would react poorly, or that he’d have a flashback to hell and Lucifer’s freezing cold hands inside him while he was with Dean, but it never happened. Dean was just so familiar and warm and soft and smiled in that way that was just for Sam, and Sam never felt safer.

 

Sam took a sip of coffee and stretched his toes. Things weren’t perfect, and they both still had problems- Sam with eating and Dean with drinking, funnily enough- but they were honest to god as good as they had ever been.

 

Dean was a mechanic. He was known in the area for his specialty with classic and antique cars, and the garage the bunker had didn’t hurt business, either.

 

Sam didn’t have a job, not really. He was sort of Bobby’s protege, which felt odd to admit. Hunters called in every so often, asking for niche and strange information on odd monsters. The bunker hadn’t failed him yet, and he was almost done reorganizing it according to the Dewey decimal system. They had a surprising amount of books on miscellaneous marine and seashore invertebrates.

 

He wanted to either go back to school or get a job he could handle sometime soon. He’d talked it over with Dr. Montgomery and knew he wasn’t quite ready yet, but he knew retirement would drive him fucking crazy. Plus, one of the fake aliases they used now had actual bills to pay, and they needed to back that up with something other than playing pool.

 

Sam thought he might be able to go back to Stanford, since they had a special program for students who had taken extended leaves, but he quickly ruled it out. He wouldn’t force Dean to uproot his life and come with him, and he wouldn’t be able to bear the distance. Plus, he was just as dependent on the life they’d carefully cultivated here as Dean was.

 

Maybe Kansas State University would be good, but Sam preferred a more liberal-minded campus. Dean was not an ignorant man by any stretch of the imagination, but Sam was doing his best to educate him on LGBT rights and gender equality. Dean hadn’t called anyone (except Sam, in an affectionate way, after an equally affectionate “jerk”) bitch in a long time, and asked a lot of questions when Sam mentioned being demisexual. A lot of good questions.

 

What was Sam talking about? Oh. University. He’d also considered doing something online until he felt more ready, or going to community college. He didn’t have a bachelor’s degree even though he’d been a semester away from getting one. He couldn’t just take four classes somewhere else and be done. It would be a big commitment.

 

He thought being a librarian sounded nice, too, so he considered helping out part-time at the local library. Full-time librarians needed a degree, so he might end up going to school somewhere close, anyway.

 

He didn’t know. What he did know was that he wasn’t ready yet, but he was open to a lot of possible futures, and none of them were all that scary. Any time he doubted his ability to pull through and make a living, he thought back to the year before and things became a lot more optimistic in his head after that.

 

“Hey, you in there, kiddo?” Dean asked, his sock-clad toe nudging Sam’s. Sam looked up from his reflection in the bottom of his coffee cup. Dean was eying him calmly, a tinge of concern creasing at the weathered corners of his eyes. Dean was still pretty young, they both were, but the age was starting to show via Dean’s wrinkles and Sam’s receding hairline.

 

He still found Dean beautiful, more beautiful than anything else on this planet.

 

He smiled back. He swallowed the last cold piece of scrambled egg. “I’m okay,” he said. Dean nodded.

 

Dean put his mug on his plate and stood. “You about done?”

 

Sam stood too, mimicking Dean’s movements. “Yeah.”

 

Dean washed while Sam dried. He put everything back in its proper place. Dean walked out of the kitchen, and Sam followed after, pausing for a small moment to admire the clean kitchen. It was such a random and stark contrast to the cluttered and dirty kitchenettes of their childhood. He smiled and hurried down the corridor to catch up with Dean.

 

***

 

Dean laughed at something on screen, and Sam blinked, shaking himself out of his reverie. At this time of year, he always got introspective. He hadn’t been paying attention to the movie.

 

He tried to focus, but his mind was particularly keen on wandering. It was December twenty-first, and neither he nor Dean had so much as uttered the word “Christmas.”

 

They had a poor track record with Christmases. Either they were split up or someone they loved was dead or worse. They’d celebrated a few times as children, John drunk and the two of them shoveling fried chicken down their gullets like they’d never eat again, and once before Dean went to hell, but never again.

 

Sam had no idea why, considering said track record, but he had a supremely soft spot inside him for Christmas. It was a recent thing. He had resented Christmas when he was younger. Something about the idea of a time of togetherness and warmth in the coldest season of the year, something about the tradition, the routine of it, appealed to him. Maybe it was that part of his soul that craved normalcy like oxygen coming out to play.

 

It felt like now was the perfect time to start having Christmases again. If all went according to plan, more or less, they’d be here for a while yet, building a life. Why not mark the years with a little joy? It was even supposed to snow on Christmas this year, a rarity for Lebanon, Kansas.

 

Yet he couldn’t get himself to bring it up to Dean. Every time he tried, the words kept dying in his throat. They were getting better at talking to each other about the things that bothered them but he couldn’t talk about this.

 

He felt a little silly for wanting Christmas so badly, for one thing. He wasn’t a child. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he didn’t get to hang a cheap red ball of glass on a dying pine tree. On top of it, Dean’s relationship with Christmas was… strained. He’d loved it originally, had thought their KFC years were prime moments of family togetherness. But after hell, he didn’t talk about Christmas. Sam had tried to bring it up before, but the positions had switched, Sam thought, and Dean was the tired one.

 

It was like Sam’s birthday, Sam guessed. Too full of painful memories now to mean anything positive at all, especially when his birth was such a colossal fuck up in general.

 

Sam massaged the scar on his palm. No need to think thoughts like that.

 

Sam scooted further into Dean’s space, resting his head on Dean’s shoulder. Dean wrapped an arm around him, eyes still glued to the screen. Sam looked up at Dean’s face. The blue flashing lights of the T.V. reflected in his pupils.

 

Sam would surprise Dean this year. He would give him a Christmas. It was the first time they were okay. It was the first time they were in love. Really truly. It was time for a Christmas. They had a lot of terrible anniversaries that came by each year and made them quiet and small. It was time for a change.

 

***

 

Sam woke up with a snort. He was still on the couch but now it was dark and he’d drooled all over Dean’s shirt. Sam sat up, wiping his face on his sleeve. He yawned. Dean got up and moved around in the dark of the office-turned-living room turning off the DVD player and putting the DVD back on the shelf. Sam stood up, and Dean grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him into a small, firm kiss.

 

Surprised, Sam blinked, searching Dean’s vague features in the darkness for an explanation. Dean shrugged. Sam leaned in and kissed him again. Dean’s hands tangled in his hair.

 

They kissed more deeply, stretching it out as long as they could. Dean’s hands ran through his hair, scratched at his scalp, and Sam wanted to purr like a cat. He sighed into Dean’s mouth, tipping his head just a little bit that way so Dean’s hands would scratch at the perfect place.

 

Just when Sam was beginning to feel like he was in heaven, Dean pulled away. He licked his thumb and brushed an eyelash off of Sam’s cheek. “Sleep,” he said.

 

Dean went out into the hallway. Sam squinted at the increase in light. They found their room quickly enough. It was dark inside, the bathroom light acting as a night light through the crack in the door.

 

They went about their night time rituals, showering and brushing teeth and popping pills. Sam climbed into bed and Dean turned on the space heaters. He got in after Sam, grabbing an extra blanket from the foot of the bed and folding it over Sam’s side of the bed. Sam got cold a lot easier than Dean did.

 

When Sam got cozy and comfortable enough, he rolled over to face Dean and squirmed into Dean’s space, pressing his face into Dean’s collar and breathing in deeply. Nothing calmed him down like the smell of just Dean did. Dean’s arms came around him, and he snaked his arms around Dean.

 

This was all he needed, really. Giving Dean a Christmas would be nice, but this? This was better than any mistletoe.

 

***

 

Operation Give Dean a Christmas officially began the following morning, and Sam was already fucking things up.

 

Dean was on break from work for the next week, and Sam gave Dean a flimsy excuse of a supply run as an excuse to hit the shops and find Dean some Christmas gifts, but he had no idea what the hell to give Dean.

 

He knew Dean better than anyone, and yet he was still drawing blanks. They hadn’t lived normal lives, so normal gifts were kind of useless- Dean had no need for a smart watch or for a really expensive jacket- but Sam didn’t have any other ideas.

 

During the last Christmas they had, they’d given each other things that were splurges for their bare essentials lifestyle. Skin mags and motor oil. This year, they could have some real splurges, but he didn’t think Dean was a teddy bear or 1,000 piece puzzle kind of guy.

 

Sam was standing in the middle of the aisle in a big box store, nibbling absentmindedly on a hangnail.

 

“Need help with anything?”

 

Sam almost jumped right out of his skin. He turned to face a store associate smiling up at him. She couldn’t have been older than twenty. He smiled awkwardly, cramming his hands in his pockets. “I’m, uh, just looking,” he said.

 

Her gaze moved to the items on the shelves before him. Fishing poles and hooks. “Looking for a gift for your dad?” she guessed.

 

Sam shrugged. “My brother,” he said, scratching at the base of his skull. “I don’t really know what to get him.”

 

“What does he like?” she asked. “What kind of fishing does he do?”

 

“Uh…” Sam trailed off. “He always talks about sitting on a dock on a lake and just waiting for something to bite and then cooking it for dinner…” He felt like he was rambling and shut up.

 

She- her nametag said Ashley- nodded, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. “You’ll want this, then,” she said, reaching up to grab what looked like a run-of-the-mill fishing pole from one of the higher shelves. “We don’t know what kind of fish he’s going for, so we’ll just go for some regular bait.” She grabbed a few boxes. She started loading them into Sam’s shopping cart.

 

“Uh-” Sam watched her go. “Thanks.”

 

Ashley stood back, smiling proudly. She didn’t seem to be aware of any discomfort in the situation. Maybe that part was all in Sam’s head. “Need anything else?” she asked.

 

“No” was halfway out of his mouth before Sam bit his lip. He looked across the store, thoughts taking shape in his head. “Actually…”

 

***

 

Sam returned home about an hour later with two bags filled of things, mostly groceries to disguise the actual reason for his short excursion.

 

Dean was loitering in the main library when Sam walked down the stairs, laptop out on the table in front of him. “Productive?” he asked, closing the laptop lid when Sam walked over.

 

“Yeah.” Sam raised the backs. “‘M gonna go put these away.”

 

Dean stood up, already reaching for a bag. “Need any help?”

 

“No,” Sam said, a little too quickly. He moved the back out of Dean’s reach. Dean gave him a look.

 

There was a brief moment where Sam didn’t know if he should stay and say something more, maybe lie, or assure Dean nothing was out of the ordinary, but Dean was already typing away at the computer again, so Sam left.

 

He put the groceries in their proper places in the kitchen and hid Dean’s gifts in his old room, which had turned into a rarely-used storage room. He didn’t think Dean would look in here. He stacked some files on top of the box he’d put his things into so that the handprints in the dust would be obscured.

 

When he turned, Dean was standing in the doorway. He had an odd look on his face. “What are you doing in the filing room?” Dean asked.

 

“Um, filing,” Sam said. Dean nodded in that way that meant he wasn’t buying it. They stared each other down, neither backing down.

 

“Sure,” Dean said after a pause. He cocked his head. “Are we going to talk about this?”

 

“About what?” Sam asked. “I just--I’m working on a--a project right now. It’s a surprise.”

 

“A surprise?” Dean repeated.

 

“A surprise,” Sam confirmed, feeling like a huge idiot.

 

Dean nodded slowly. “Okay, weirdo,” he said as he left the room.

 

Sam breathed out a sigh of relief. There was no reason for this to feel as dramatic and underhanded as it did. Just because they told each other everything didn’t mean he had to tell Dean about a Christmas surprise. It was laughable he had to even remind himself of that fact.

 

Sam smiled at himself in a self-deprecating way. Soon enough, it’d be the day of, and he wouldn’t have to sneak around. Imagining the look on Dean’s face on Christmas morning alleviated any of the knots in his shoulders.

 

He didn’t see Dean much for the rest of the day. They went to sleep without talking, and Sam conked out almost immediately.

 

He was woken up early by movement from the other side of the bed. He rolled onto his back, blinking blearily into the darkness. He felt pressure on his stomach as blankets were thrown off the other side and onto him. He watched Dean hop lightly out of bed and tip toe over to the door.

 

Sam checked his watch. The face glowed in the darkness. It wasn’t even five yet. “D’n?” he asked.

 

Dean froze at the door. “Go back to sleep, Sammy,” he said, and then slipped out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

 

Sam was too tired to question it, then, rolling back over and flopping across the bed, falling asleep in the warm spot Dean had created.

 

***

 

When Sam woke up, the empty spot beside him reminded him of what had happened before dawn. It was weird to wake up alone. He hadn’t done that in months. Even when Dean went off to work, they got up together.

 

Sam sat up, the blankets pooling at his waist. The space heaters were still going strong. It was a little after eight. Sam got up and turned them off. He got ready for the day and changed into another soft pair of pajamas.

 

Walking around the bunker in wool socks, he kept an eye out for Dean. He wasn’t in the library or the office or the storage room or the living room.

 

Sam walked into the kitchen, the unreserved hope in his chest dying when he found the room empty. There was an open box of cereal left out on the counter and a bowl in the sink. Sam made himself some cereal and ate in silence. He ate about a third of the bowl before his brain and stomach started protesting. He cleaned everything up.

 

He loitered after, wringing his hands. When Dean was at work, Sam usually was, too, filing things or talking to hunters. They were both on break, though, and Sam had no idea what to do without Dean around.

 

That was probably the “problematic codependency” that Dr. Montgomery had mentioned. She urged him to pursue independent interests and become comfortable being alone, but all it did was remind Sam of the circumstances that had left him alone in the past.

 

Unable to keep still, he went back into the library. He was just about to call Dean, phone in hand and open to the contacts page, when the bunker’s main door squeaked open and Dean appeared in the entryway at the top of the stairs.

 

Sam looked up at him and Dean looked down at him. “Where’d you go?” Sam asked.

 

Dean shrugged. “Out.”

 

Sam frowned. He supposed it was quid pro quo after his weirdness in the filing room, but it still felt off.

 

Dean clomped down the metal stairs and brushed past Sam, heading down the hallway.

 

Sam didn’t pursue him. He had a few bad feelings about what was going on, about falling into old, unhealthy habits, but there was one feeling he had that he clung onto with a desperate kind of optimism.

 

There was the significant possibility that Dean was being shady for the exact same reason as he was. For all he knew, Dean had just went out and gotten him a gift. For all he knew, Dean had used one of the old trucks in the garage and gotten a tree.

 

Dean came back out, disrupting Sam’s fantasies of a Douglas Fir in the bunker. He thought it would look great underneath the front door balcony, or maybe in the corner of their living room.

 

Now was his chance to wean Dean onto the possibility of having Christmases. He believed that somewhere inside Dean, that little boy with bright eyes who loved the spirit of the holidays was still in there.

 

“Dean,” he said, and Dean looked over at him. “We’re on break.”

 

Dean blinked. “Yeah.”

 

“Holiday break,” Sam stressed. “I think we should celebrate.”

 

Dean chewed on the inside of his lip. “You want to have a Christmas?” he asked.

 

Sam nodded hard enough to make his hair shake loose from behind his ears. He tucked it back, anxious hands eager to do something productive. He tried not to look too hopeful, but he knew the puppy eyes were coming out in full strength. “We have plenty to celebrate,” he said softly.

 

Dean’s eyes went just as soft. He stepped into Sam’s space, patting down his hair and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I know I’m usually all gung-ho about Christmas,” Dean started, not meeting his eyes, “but it’s just not for us, you know?”

 

“Not for us?” Sam repeated. The skeptic in him was preparing several slides of evidence proving the contrary.

 

“Yeah,” Dean said. He waved his hands around, gesturing vaguely to the bunker. “It’s better, yeah, but it’s still hard. You get back up a lot faster than I do. I still think about you sitting in that mental hospital with blank eyes and me havin’ to help you take a piss and ignoring the hair that fell out when I combed your hair during the second trial. I just keep feeling like the other shoe has to drop.”

 

Sam flinched. He hated that phrase. Ever since he’d overheard Dean and Bobby discussing his mental state like he was just a headcase, the words sat heavy like mercury in his stomach every time he heard them. “It’s not going to drop,” he said, pushing past the discomfort. “We can just try, and if it doesn’t-”

 

“Please, Sammy, I’m tired,” Dean interrupted, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I’m gonna work on Baby.” He turned and left.

 

Sam watched him go, heart sinking. His hands clenched and unclenched, working just as uselessly as his brain was. It felt like such a turn. Just moments earlier he’d been so sure Dean was sneaking around, too, up to the same game as Sam was.

 

He’d thought things had been looking up. Was Dean hiding his feelings? Was he hurting? Had Sam not noticed?

 

Each question hit him harder than the last.

 

He went to the storage room, shifted the files from the box he’d put the gifts in, and flipped open the lid. He looked down at the contents, biting his lip and frowning. He still had the receipt. But Dean’s birthday was a month after Christmas, and that day still hadn’t been ruined.

 

Maybe he should abandon his quest for Christmas and embark on a month-long journey to get Dean to open up and talk about his problems, and then celebrate his progress on his birthday. Maybe Dean’s birthday could become their positive anniversary that Sam wanted so much.

 

What Sam wanted didn’t really matter, at the end of the day. Dean’s health did. Maybe he was the only one who wanted something to mark the years. Maybe Dean would prefer for them to pass them by in quiet safety.

 

Sam closed the lid and put the files back on top of the box, wiping his hands on the seat of his pants. He stood up, back cracking, and went back out into the hallway.

 

He loitered for a minute, indecisive about where he should go.

 

Having a choice at all was so unfamiliar. This territory was so unexplored. Sam didn’t think he was walking in a minefield, but he still felt like a wrong move with Dean would spell disaster.

 

He ended up leaving Dean to work out his stress on the Impala and distracted himself by continuing to re-file the bunker’s library, losing himself in numbers and yellowed papers and the smell of the wax in ancient spines of books.

 

***

 

The next two days passed by with nothing much to show. They went on living. They cooked and ate and watched movies and slept and shoveled slowly gathering snow. Sam went for lots of walks in the woods and Dean hung out in the library on his laptop. The days were stagnant, slow, and almost identical, but Sam found he didn’t really mind. If this was the whole of the celebration he’d get, it wouldn’t kill him. What were holidays for, if not for reflecting on life and feeling grateful for the good things?

 

On Christmas Eve, Sam went out once again and got a few little decorations despite his reservations. They might not get used this year, or at all, but he couldn’t stop himself from putting them in the cart after his drive led him to the nearest shopping mall.

 

His plans had shifted. He was going to do his best to help Dean, and if Dean really didn’t want a Christmas, they wouldn’t have one. But if Sam thought it would help, he was going to give Dean a Christmas like he had almost ten years ago.

 

Their paths crossed after Sam hid the decorations in the storage room. His shoulder brushed Dean’s in the hallway. He reached back and caught Dean’s hand in his, tugging Dean toward him and preventing him from walking away.

 

Dean went easy, slinging his arms low on Sam’s hips. In close proximity, Dean’s smell floated all around him. Sam smiled, a little tilt of his lips, warmth pooling in his belly. “Hey.”

 

Dean smiled back, fingers drumming in the softness of Sam’s hips. “Hey.”

 

Sam squeezed Dean’s hand, pulling it up so it could rest on the center of his chest. “Early dinner?” he asked.

 

Dean’s eyes went dark and he smirked, running his hand down Sam’s chest. “Then… dessert?”

 

Sam blushed a little, but he was used to this dance now. He enjoyed it. He shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe.”

 

“‘Kay.” The syllable popped out of Dean’s mouth like bubblegum. He untangled himself from Sam. “What’re you in the mood for?”

 

Sam shrugged again. “Whatever you’re in the mood for.”

 

Dean chucked. “Dangerous words, little brother,” he said. “Help me set up?”

 

“Sure,” Sam said, and easy as a breeze, they moved in sync to the kitchen, wordlessly dividing up tasks. Sam knew what to do with an ingredient when Dean handed it to him--he went to work getting out the cutting board and dicing up the onions the way Dean liked them, dividing the lettuce up into strips, and mixing up dressings and garlic into his favorite salad dressing.

 

Preparing dinner was an ordeal, certainly more than going out to a fast food joint would be, but they both valued the small, manageable tasks and time together, and it was definitely much better for their hearts.

 

They’d never had to worry about their hearts before. Either there were bigger things in mind, tighter wallets, or they both just thought they’d die from supernatural causes long before anything natural could bite them in the ass.

 

It was kind of nice to worry about Dean’s cholesterol. It was such a tolerable, little demon that Sam found pleasure in fighting it.

 

Their dinner was a “healthy compromise,” a concept Dr. Montgomery loved to stress--Dean got burgers, yes, but they were low on condiments and high on greens, and Sam got a salad, but it was heavy on carrots and croutons, Dean’s favorite, and the dressing was actually Dean’s invention, even though they both loved it.

 

Dean still refused to admit it, but he loved the salads Sam made. Sam had been slaving away at converting Dean to sense ever since they’d started this chapter of their lives. Salad wasn’t just lettuce and flavorless, dead vegetables. It could taste good and be good for you, too. Dean agreed, though he’d never say it. Sam still knew. That was good enough for him.

 

Tonight, it wasn’t beer, and it wasn’t coffee, either. They both drank glasses of water.

 

Usually, they shot the shit while cooking and enjoying dinner, ragging on each other and making jokes, but tonight, it was quiet. Sam didn’t mind, but the paranoid corner of his mind kept wondering if it was because of Dean’s negative feelings about the season.

 

The moment his fork clanked against his empty bowl, Dean’s ankle was hooking around his. “Dessert?” he asked.

 

Sam rolled his eyes, but the ensuing smile was confirmation enough for Dean.

 

The next thing he knew, Sam was licking saliva off red lips, not cream off a red cherry, and sucking on a tongue, not an ice cream cone.

 

Dean’s version of dessert was a little changed from what it had been before.

 

Sam was pressed up against the door to their bedroom, and Dean was all over him, hands roaming and crawling up and down various fabrics, making Sam shiver and shake. Dean kissed and kissed and kissed, and his lips were spellbinding, making Sam’s tingly. Dean’s scruff tickled against Sam’s bare cheeks, and Dean kept making little humming noises in the back of his throat, the sound of pure satisfaction.

 

Their bodies rolled and arched together in a perfect, practiced dance. Pajama pants did not leave much to the imagination and allowed lots of friction to pass through the thin layers. Dean rocked his hips up against Sam’s, again and again, and Sam whined low in his throat, clawing at Dean’s back as he fought the deep, heated feeling of pressure and pleasure that skated from his cock down to his toes every time Dean moved in just the right way.

 

He grabbed at Dean’s shoulders, staring at the opposite wall while Dean sucked hickeys into the sensitive spot where his shoulder met his neck. He closed his eyes, the feeling making his whole body vibrate. He couldn’t leave good enough alone, though, couldn’t turn his brain off, and forced his eyes back open, ignoring the jump of his dick, the wetness at the tip begging for release.

 

“Dean,” he said, the name sounding more like a moan than anything else. “Can we talk?”

 

Dean bit Sam once before pulling back, lips shiny with spit. He gave Sam a heated, dubious look, cheeks pink, mouth open as he breathed heavily. “Right now?” he asked, and the intonation was that of a major “are you serious?” moment.

 

Sam looked at him helplessly. His eyes were still lidded, his blood was still in decidedly southern regions of his body, but he hadn’t had a moment with Dean all day, and tomorrow was Christmas. He nodded.

 

Dean took a step back, adjusting himself in his pants. “You couldn’t have said something over dinner?”

 

“I…” Sam didn’t have an answer for that. He should’ve, but he’d been so desperate to save that peaceful, quiet moment in his mind that he let the opportunity slip by. “Are you okay?”

 

Dean gave him a look. “Isn’t that a silly question?”

 

“No, I just mean…” Sam searched for the right words. He pushed off the door, taking a step toward Dean. “I know you didn’t want to do Christmas, and you’ve been quiet lately, I just want to know if something’s bothering you.”

 

Dean’s face was shutting down in a way that was dangerous familiar, an echo of a billion worse times, of them fighting over Dad, Azazel, Lilith, Ruby, Benny, and countless others. “Nothing’s bothering me,” Dean said, voice flat and low.

 

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Sam said. “Because if things are getting harder, if Christmas reminds you of bad things, I’ve gotta know, okay? So I can help. So Dr. Montgomery can help. I want us to celebrate, Dean. I want this to mean something.”

 

Dean was struggling to keep his face schooled. His eyes and lips kept twitching, but Sam couldn’t tell what expression they were trying to twitch into. Annoyance? Anger? Apathy? “Look, it’s just not a big deal, okay? Can we drop it?”

 

Sam shook his head. “Dean, c’mon.” The “please” went unsaid.

 

Dean threw his shirt off and walked to the bathroom. “I’m gonna get ready for bed.”

 

“It’s only ten,” Sam protested. Dean disappeared into the bathroom, and the sink went on a moment later. “Dean,” he called, raising his voice to be heard over the susurrus of water.

 

“If it means so much to you, celebrate yourself,” Dean called back. The door closed, kicked shut by Dean.

 

Sam stared after it, wracking his thoughts for a next move. He didn’t have one. He stood there, listening to Dean brush his teeth. This was the first fight they’d had in a long while, and the relatively harmless nature of it should’ve been comforting, but Sam hated for any sort of negativity to intrude on their lives. That might be naive--sue him, after what he’d been through, he was entitled to a little naivete, no matter how late in life it was.

 

Who knew Christmas would be the cause of their disagreement.

 

Sam climbed into bed, trying to convince himself that the argument didn’t mean much and wouldn’t change things. He stared into the darkness long after Dean had returned and his breaths had evened out. Sam’s thoughts were running at a mile a minute.

 

***

 

He woke up at after five on Christmas morning. He sat up. He didn’t feel tired at all. He looked at Dean’s sleeping form, curled away from him. Sam threw back the blankets and got out of bed.

 

His determination had hardened to steel overnight. This was all so stupid, he thought. They could have a good time. He was going to go through with his plan, consequences be damned. The worst thing that could happen would be Dean not wanting to celebrate, and Sam could deal with that. He could make it better.

 

The biggest and most urgent thing on his list- the one thing he wanted to have set up before Dean woke up in just a few hours- was a Christmas tree. It was a good thing they lived on a private, five-hundred acre plot of land in nowhere, Kansas, and that it had countless evergreens crowding the overgrown forests behind the bunker.

 

Sam went to the Impala in the garage and put his gun and a knife into his jacket, just in case. Force of habit. He found their saw, still tinged red from the last time it was used, and held it firmly in his gloved hand. He walked out of the garage and into the soft, blue, winter world with a swift step.

 

His ears went cold and red almost immediately. It was still snowing. They’d have to shovel the drive again, which was a bitch and a half to do.

 

It sure as hell was beautiful, though, Sam couldn’t deny that. The world was one softly sloping plane of snow and whiteness and emptiness, completely undisturbed for miles around them. It was them, the animals, and silence.

 

Sam headed into the forest, footsteps crunching satisfyingly as he went. The tree’s barren limbs were weighed down with blankets of snow. The only noises in the entire world were Sam’s breaths and movements.

 

Light flakes floated lazily down from the sky. The sun still hadn’t risen, making everything blue and grey and a little bit softer.

 

It didn’t take Sam long to find a tree he liked. It was on the small side, standing at the center of a little glade, but it was the perfect size to haul back to the bunker and it didn’t have any bald spots and was a nice shape.

 

He got to work cutting it down. It had been a while since he had felled a tree, but he was able to do it with a quick, strong arm and a good sense for which way it would fall. It fell into a bank of snow with a muted thump, and Sam crouched down, getting his shoulder under the stump and standing up, wrapping his arms around the rough bark. He grunted as he moved forward, dragging the tree along behind him.

 

His muscles ached, and his lungs hurt from the cold, but above all else, it was therapeutic as all hell. He should tell Dr. Montgomery to recommend to her patients to cut down trees or chop wood to clear their thoughts. It worked a charm.

 

He was at the wood’s edge, the bunker in sight, when Dean came sprinting out of the garage, full-tilt. He looked left and right until he spotted Sam. He tripped and slipped in the snow in his haste to get to his brother.

 

Dean stopped right in front of him, putting his hands on his knees and panting. He looked up at Sam with wide, panicked eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

 

The small crack in Dean’s voice pulled at Sam’s heartstrings. He couldn’t really gesture with his arms so full of pine, so he jerked his head toward the tree on his shoulder. “Getting a Christmas tree.”

 

Silence. Dean got his breath back, panting dissolving into more even breaths. He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. “I just, you’ve been disappearing a lot and I saw you’d left, and then I went to see where you’d gone, and saw your gun missing from the trunk, and you didn’t take the car, and I…”

 

Sam softened impossibly further. “The saw was gone, too.”

 

Dean gave him a look. “Yeah, well, me and rationality weren’t exactly on speaking terms.”

 

Sam smiled sheepishly. “Wanna give me a hand with this?”

 

Dean’s face adopted a familiar, chiding look. “Well, don’t do it again,” he said, moving to Sam’s side and picking up the other end of the tree, lightening Sam’s load by half.

 

“I promise not to cut down any more trees,” Sam said. He stepped forward, and Dean stepped with him. They moved slowly, but they made pretty good time, walking the tree through the tunnel leading into the garage and into the hallway.

 

“Where do you want it?” Dean asked from behind him, and Sam led them into the main library. He stopped in front of the stairs. “I think here’s nice,” he said.

 

“On three,” Dean said. He counted, and they lowered the tree at the same time, leaning it upright against the wall.

 

Dean stared at it the way he would if Sam had brought a dog home. “You can’t just prop it there.”

 

“I bought a tree stand,” Sam said. “And a skirt.”

 

Dean nodded. “Of course,” he said. “And those are…?”

 

“I’ll get them,” Sam said hastily. “Just wait here.”

 

Dean didn’t question him. Sam hurried down the hallway, checking to make sure Dean couldn’t see him from his vantage point. He went into the storage room and pulled out the Christmas decorations and Dean’s gifts. He wrapped Dean’s gifts, trying to make them look nice but favoring speed over perfection. They were a little sloppy, but it would have to do. He hauled the two bags of Christmas decorations on his shoulders, kicking the box with the tree stand down the hall. Dean’s presents were under his arms.

 

When he stepped back out into the main room, Dean had two little wrapped gifts at his feet, and his laptop was out on the nearest table. Sam stopped in his tracks. Dean looked up at him.

 

Dean came over and took some of Sam’s bags while Sam stayed frozen, processing things. When he came back to his senses, he gathered the rest of the things and dropped them in a pile in front of the tree.

 

They opened the box and put the tree stand together in silence. They lifted the tree up and secured it in the stand. Sam put the skirt around the tree. Dean brushed pine needles out of Sam’s hair. They put the presents under the tree.

 

Sam stood back up, facing Dean. “What happened to not wanting a Christmas?” he asked.

 

Dean ducked his head, brows furrowing and lips pursing in a look of pure guilt. “I wanted to surprise you, I didn’t think you’d want a Christmas,” he said. “Kind of a dick move, but it was worth it, right?” He gave Sam a hopeful look.

 

Sam swatted him. “Definitely a dick move,” he said. “I wanted to surprise you, too, jackass.”

 

Dean spread his arms, gesturing to the condensed Christmas at their feet. “Didn’t we both succeed, kinda?” he asked. “At least a little bit?”

 

Sam broke out into a relieved smile, dimples out in full force. “Yeah, okay,” he said. He held up a finger. “But don’t ever do that again. I was worried about you, okay? Don’t push me away.”

 

Dean wrapped Sam up in a tight, warm hug. “I won’t,” he said into Sam’s shoulder. “I promise I’m okay, and I promise I want Christmas, and I really like your surprise, Sammy.”

 

Sam pulled back. He picked up a box of Christmas lights. “Help me with this?”

 

Dean took the box from him, staring down at it like… well, like a kid on Christmas morning. He smiled at Sam. “Let’s get our holiday on.”

 

They went to work on the tree, attacking it from all sides. In a weird, opposite kind of way, it felt like a hunt. It felt like the part during the preliminary research period where they gathered up all the news articles and internet clippings and put them on a pinboard, tying connections with red strings like tinsel across branches.

 

Sam stood back when they were finished. Dean was on his hands and knees, snaking the extension cord behind the tree. “You ready?” he called.

 

Sam rubbed his hands together. “Do it,” he said.

 

There was a short pause, and then the tree started to glow.

 

After a few adjustments- there was a dark patch on the right side- it was perfect. It was absolutely perfect.

 

The light of the rainbow-colored lights reflected off of the gold and silver tinsel. They didn’t have any ornaments yet, but it was alright. They could get them together, or get a few more every year and build something. Yes, Sam decided, that was a tradition that he would love to uphold.

 

They split up after taking a moment of silence to properly admire the tree and all that it stood for. Dean grabbed some light up snowflake things and hung them from the lamps over the tables in the library. Sam grabbed a few of the nutcrackers he’d bought and put them on the bookshelves in the living room.

 

The cheesy “reindeer xing” sign went up on their door. The rest of the decorations were just little paper garlands and snowflakes and various odds and ends, and it quickly became a game of who could finish placing things before the other, and who could hide them the best. They would be finding surprise Christmas decorations for the next couple of months at the least. Sam couldn’t wait.

 

When they’d taped up the last garland and plugged in the last light strand on the staircase railing, they were both out of breath. Getting into the holiday spirit was no easy feat.

 

They met back up in front of the tree, spinning in slow circles to get a look at everything. The bunker wasn’t exactly transformed, it still felt like the same old place, but there was definitely some added personality, some customization that turned it from a bunker to a home.

 

Sam felt something brush against his knuckles. He looked down. Dean’s hand was knocking against his. He took initiative and entwined his and Dean’s fingers. Dean’s hand tightened around Sam’s. They looked at the tree together.

 

Dean, not releasing Sam’s hand, sat down, and Sam was forced to join him. Dean crossed his legs applesauce style and handed Sam one of his presents. “You go first.”

 

“Okay.” Sam took it from him, weighing it in his hands. He stared down at it, peering at the snowman wrapping paper. He was unexpectedly nervous.

 

Dean’s knee nudged his.

 

Sam began unwrapping it, carefully peeling back taped corners and unfolding the paper without damaging it.

 

“Come on,” Dean said, and Sam rolled his eyes and ripped the paper the rest of the way off. He opened the brown little box and was met with a watch. A really nice watch.

 

He looked up at Dean. Dean looked away, cheeks reddening. He played with the tie string on his pajamas. “Just thought you might want a new one,” he said, glancing at Sam.

 

“It’s.” Sam took it out of the case, turning it over in his hand. It was satisfyingly heavy, the metal face cool in his hand, the leather band soft. “It’s great. Thank you.” He undid the black rubber strap on his current little digital watch. It practically fell off him. The face was scratched and almost unreadable, and the band was on its last legs. It was a wonder he hadn’t lost it yet or it hadn’t gotten destroyed.

 

He put the new watch on and tilted his wrist back and forth, admiring how the silver looked in the low lighting. “What’s the time?” he asked Dean. Dean answered, and he set the watch.

 

Sam grabbed one of the boxes from under the tree and handed it to Dean. “Now you.”

 

Dean looked from the long, thin box in his hand to the tiny box by Sam’s knee. “Sammy, you’re making me insecure,” he said.

 

Sam punched him lightly. “Open it,” he said.

 

Dean tore at the paper like a dog at a bone. He was staring down at a stock photo image of a man with a fishing pole within seconds. “Sammy,” he said.

 

Sam swallowed past a little lump in his throat. “There’s a lake out back,” he said. “We could easily cut a path there, and then use the wood to build a dock-”

 

Dean interrupted him by getting to his knees and hooking his hands in Sam’s t-shirt collar, dragging him in for a rough, passionate kiss. It was quickly over, and Dean was sitting again, getting another box out from other the tree, but Sam was still lightheaded. He touched his lips, blinking.

 

He accepted the box Dean gave him without thought. He opened it and found himself looking at a smaller, velvet box. He shot Dean a questioning glance, but Dean’s face was unreadable. Sam opened the box and looked down at a ring.

 

It was thick and silver. He held it up to the light between his thumb and forefinger. Something caught his eye. He peered at the inside. A few tiny runes were etched into the silver, and then S. W. D. W.

 

“For protection,” Dean offered. He looked so nervous, so hopeful, but hesitant.

 

It was Sam’s turn to pull him into a kiss, but this time, it devolved into loud, messy making out. Dean pulling Sam’s hair and Sam holding onto Dean’s back as tightly as he could. When they finally came up for air, Sam stared at the ring in his hand in a daze. It was Dean who reached forward, gingerly taking the ring from him and sliding it onto Sam’s ring finger.

 

Sam immediately adjusted to the pressure on his finger. It felt like it belonged there. It was a companion to the ring Dean had. Sam took Dean’s hand, spreading it out on his knee. He took a brief moment to admire the scars and freckles and little hairs before he scooted Dean’s ring off of his middle finger and instead put it on his ring finger.

 

Dean squeezed his knee. “Thanks, Sammy,” he said roughly.

 

Sam nodded. He didn’t trust his words. He got out his last box for Dean and handed it to him.

 

Dean unwrapped it and opened the box, taking out the supple leather journal and pens with careful precision. He flipped through the white, empty pages before placing the items on the ground before him. He gave Sam a wet, soft, lingering look, full of understanding. Their rings might symbolize a vow, but the journal symbolized a legacy. “Thanks, Sammy,” he repeated.

 

Sam nodded. The tree was now devoid of presents, and boxes and scraps of wrapping paper were littered around the floor. He stood, knees cracking, and smoothed down his shirt. “So, what next?” he asked.

 

“You have one more present,” Dean said, then sat at his laptop. He pulled out the chair next to him while he typed away. Sam sat beside him.

 

Dean opened up an order page. It had a professional grade photocopier and a shipping date a few days out. The other items in the cart all had to do with organization--tabs, a label maker, a barcode maker and scanner, things like that. “I know you talk about archiving the bunker for other hunters to use, but I thought you might want to help in a different way,” Dean said.

 

While Sam watched, he clicked to a new window where a blank webpage with a little title bar displayed. The URL in the browser was something silly like “samthehunter dot com,” and Sam smiled at it. “Garth has somebody who fixed up the website for you,” Dean said. “All you have to do is write descriptions, tag things, and upload pictures and files of the books. This way, anyone can access the library.”

 

He clicked through the website builder settings and pointed to a little number. The cloud storage was a couple of terabytes. Sam would have plenty of room to upload the library, in its entirety or close to it.

 

Sam’s throat was closing up and his eyes were burning. It was just so thoughtful. He knew Dean was a thoughtful guy, knew Dean listened to him drone on about the library’s potential, but he’d never expected this. This was a huge commitment, something that had to have taken weeks of planning. Dean had been working on his gift for who knows how long.

 

“You okay?” Dean asked quietly, a light hand on Sam’s back. “You like it?”

 

Sam hid his embarrassed tears by putting his face in his hands. He laughed. “I’m just--ignore me.” He took a moment, taking in a shuddering breath. He looked up at Dean with red-rimmed eyes. He gave him a watery smile. “Thank you… thank you,” he croaked.

 

Dean gave him the same teary smile. “Shut up,” he said, leaning forward to give Sam a soft, closed-mouth kiss.

 

***

 

They cleaned up the mess and watched Die Hard (it was technically a Christmas movie, shut up) in the living room, cuddled up under blankets. Dean was sprawled back against the armrests of the couch, and Sam was between his legs. Dean’s hands absentmindedly ran through Sam’s hair while he watched the movie. Sam had never felt warmer or safer in his life.

 

Once again, he found himself tuning out the movie. He’d never been given a gift so thoughtful before, something so meaningful and deeply personal. Every other gift in his life that came close was from Dean. He had a small but important mental file of memories of gifts from Dean, of shared little moments of intimacy and sharing that he would treasure forever and visit in rough times. He knew without a doubt that he would be walking back down these halls on this very day when he went to heaven.

 

Dean meant so much to him. They were both idiots, but their idiocies complemented each other’s. They both fucked up, but they patched things up together. They thought alike, schemed alike, worried alike.

 

Sometimes he felt like he didn’t deserve Dean, but then he thought about how Dean would feel if he ever voiced that feeling. Dean probably even felt the same way, even though Sam was still struggling to identify anything of value within himself.

 

He was made for Dean, and Dean was made for him. They were soulmates. And they were going to be okay. When Dean had tried to start the trials, telling Sam that Sam deserved to grow old and chug viagra, he hadn’t known how right he’d be. But there was one crucial difference between reality and Dean’s wish: Sam would have the privilege of chugging viagra beside Dean.

 

They’d grow old together. They’d have a home. They’d have safety. For once, for once in his entire life, these things felt real, felt like a promise that wouldn’t be broken.

 

Sam was almost overwhelmed. He’d spent so much time being hurt and shying away from the next blow that he never thought he’d stop cringing every time a metaphorical (or literal) hand was raised before him.

 

He was okay. He was getting better. He would be okay. Hell didn’t own him, his mistakes didn’t own him, Dean forgave him and understood him. He had Dean. Dean was getting better, too.

 

The movie ended, and Sam flipped over, crawling up into Dean’s space and looking down at him. The credits played off to the left, illuminating the brush of Dean’s jawline and his spiky hair. He nuzzled his nose against Dean’s and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. “Can we go to our room?” he murmured, and Dean’s hands went from his hair to his back to his ass.

 

“Mhmm-hmm, sweetheart,” Dean murmured right back. “Let’s go.”

 

Sam got up and pulled Dean up. They walked pressed against one another, squeezing through the door into their room together. Someone had taped a mistletoe above the bed. Sam smiled wryly.

 

Sam was falling back against the bed in the next moment, Dean following him down. They kissed and kissed and kissed, lips going sensitive and breaths going unsteady.

 

Layers of clothing were removed, and it wasn’t long before t-shirts and pajamas became bare skin, curves and contours, moles and freckles brought flush and warm against each other.

 

They only broke apart long enough to kick clothes off the bed, then their lips were sealed again, tongues swiping against each other, hands roaming, admiring, and squeezing.

 

They rocked against each other, hard cocks rubbing and creating delicious friction. Dean swore into Sam’s mouth, shoving his hand between them and gathering them both in his hand, jerking them off roughly while their hips still gyrated and made sparks fly behind Sam’s eyelids.

 

He got too close, and put his hand on Dean’s, stopping him. Dean broke apart from their kiss, looking down at Sam with heavy-lidded eyes, pupils blown and face soft in lust-love, reserved just for him. Sam would never get used to it. He craved it.

 

“Want more,” he whispered, blinking doefully at Dean. “Please.”

 

Dean didn’t respond. He gave Sam a single rough kiss before getting up. He rolled to the other side of the bed and Sam watched him go, watching Dean’s fat cock bounce against his happy trail and then watching his pert ass move as Dean fished for the lube in the bedside drawer.

 

Sam’s own cock jerked at the thought of what was to come. It had been awhile since they’d gone all the way, and his muscles contracted with want at the sense memory of it all. He’d never felt as complete as he did sharing space, sharing one combined body with Dean.

 

Dean was back a second later, little plastic bottle in hand. He pushed at Sam’s knees, and Sam Sam bent and spread his legs, giving Dean room to move in closer, bodies brushing with heat.

 

The snap of the lid on the lube opening had Sam biting his lip, blurt of precome on his cockhead. Dean hummed a Metallica song to himself while he got his fingers coated in lube. His fingers went to Sam’s hole, and Sam jerked at the cold, but adjusted quickly enough. This was routine.

 

Dean massaged him first, getting him relaxed. Sam closed his eyes and let himself melt into the mattress. He urged his muscles to relax and lay loose, and just as he started getting comfortable, the first knuckle of Dean’s finger breached him.

 

It burned a little at first, but Dean’s warm hand on his inner thigh and Dean’s soothing humming made him accommodate the intrusion easily enough. Before long, Dean was adding more lube, brushing at Sam’s insides deeper, deeper.

 

It stopped burning after Dean had been fucking him for a single finger for a couple of minutes. Somehow, without words, Dean always knew exactly when to proceed and what to do to make Sam’s toes curl. He crooked his finger, rubbing at that tiny place inside Sam and Sam gasped, body jumping off the bed. Dean rubbed at his prostate, and Sam sighed, lazily stroking at his cock, barely touching himself at all. Dean could always make him feel good in a way no one else could.

 

Sam grew impatient. He wanted to chase the feeling, wanted it to build. With his free hand, he tugged on Dean’s wrist. “More,” he said, and Dean pulled his finger out, applying more lube.

 

Dean obliged him, slowly opening him up with two fingers, then three. It got easier each time, felt better each time Dean twisted his fingers just like that. Before long, Sam was wanting more, so much more.

 

He propped himself up on his elbows. They shared a dark, heady, look, intense enough to steal Sam’s breath. While Sam watched, Dean took his hand out of him and poured a liberal amount of lube into his hands. Still making eye contact, pure want passing between them, Dean lubed up his cock, turning it bright and shiny, head red with need.

 

Sam fell back onto his back at the same moment Dean got to his knees and crawled forward. Sam wrapped his legs around Dean’s waist and linked his ankles over the small of Dean’s ass, baring his hole to Dean.

 

Dean buried his face in Sam’s neck, guiding his cock to Sam’s hole. Sam felt the blunt head push at the entrance. Just like it did every time, at first it felt too big, burned a little, but once his hole accepted the head, he just wanted more.

 

Dean gave him time to adjust. They breathed in sync, hearts beating in sync, just holding onto each other’s heated, sweaty, familiar bodies. Sam traced scars on Dean’s back. He could remember where each one was without looking. Constellations of memories. Dean pulled back a little, kissed Sam, and slid all the way home.

 

An involuntary groan was pulled out of Sam. He tossed his head back into the pillow, breathing sharply. He never got used to the complete feeling of fullness that Dean could give to him. It was intoxicating. Dean began rocking, fucking him shortly and shallowly, sucking on his tongue and stealing his air. Sam’s fingernails dug into Dean’s back, scratching at the bumps on his spine as Dean slowly fucked him deeper.

 

Sam moaned, long and high, and Dean swore, breaking off the kiss to nibble at Sam’s jawbone. He suckled a bruise into the spot below Sam’s ear, and Sam shivered, eyes rolling back into his head. His cock twitched over and over, and Dean, somehow completely in tune with him, reached down at just that moment and started stroking him from base to head in time with his thrusts.

 

“Fuck,” Sam moaned. He whimpered. The bed was creaking now, Dean fucking him in earnest, pulling almost all the way out before slamming right back in, their skin slapping in a sinful, dirty symphony as their bodies came together.

 

Sam loved the sound, loved the quiet little grunts Dean tried to stifle. They kissed, and Dean jerked Sam off and fucked him, the wet sounds going straight to Sam’s cock. He loved it.

 

Dean got his arms under Sam’s back and scooted forward, pulling Sam up into his lap, and Sam screamed. Dean was brushing at his prostate with every thrust now, fingers rubbing at the underside of his head where he was too sensitive.

 

He was overwhelmed with feeling. The sensations pulsing throughout his body and the pressure building in his cock was almost too good to process. Dean was going to break his brain. Sam could hear himself whimpering, could hear the thready, high-pitched noises he was making, but he couldn’t control them. He was fully given over to pleasure, to the electricity making him arch and curl.

 

Dean broke off from their kiss to bite at Sam’s shoulder, and the sharp pain there crested the pleasure Sam felt. He came with a shout, Dean stroking him through the extended aftershocks. When he came from Dean’s cock, the orgasm lasted longer than just being jerked off, and the small hiatus since their last fuck made it all the more intense.

 

Dean was rumbling into Sam’s skin, swearing and saying filthy things like “gonna fill you up, babe, gonna mark you up.” Dean groaned, long and loud, and his hips stuttered against Sam’s ass. He pushed into him three more rough times before he stilled, and Sam could feel the come pulsing inside of him. He held onto Dean while Dean came.

 

It took Dean several beats to come back to himself. When he did, he flopped onto Sam. They lay there for ages. When it started to get uncomfortable, Dean pulled out of Sam, rolling onto his back beside Sam, thighs touching, his come dribbling out of Sam’s abused hole as he went. Sam made a noise at the strange feeling, and Dean massaged his hole, face pressed against the pillow beside Sam’s.

 

After an indeterminable amount of time, Dean got up and came back with a warm, wet washcloth. He cleaned up Sam as best as he could, but there was nothing he could do about the stain on the sheets. Sam didn’t care. He liked the reminder.

 

Sam curled up naked on his side, sighing, stretching his toes under the blankets. Dean got under the covers next to him, sliding into his space.

 

Sam closed his eyes, letting Dean draw him into his arms. Dean’s skin was so soft against his. He felt so good. Every muscle in his body was loose and relaxed, and his hole pulsed pleasantly, a reminder of the sex. An orgasm was a good high, but Sam almost preferred the sleepy, easy feeling that followed, like nothing could ever go wrong in the world.

 

Dean’s hands ran through his hair, and Dean’s lips kissed the crown of his head. The last thing he knew before drifting off to sleep was the feeling of Dean’s hand falling to his hip.

 

They dozed together, wrapped around one another, one beginning where the other ended, lost to the world and safe in their own private world.

 

***

 

Sam woke up to the smell of syrup. He stretched. He was still naked. He sat up, leaning against the headboard and yawning. Dean was by the door, just in boxers, balancing a tray with a full breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and toast in his arms. He set the platter on Sam’s hip.

 

Sam met his eyes. Dean’s eyes skated down to Sam’s bare chest, the hair between his hips. He bit his lips, giving Sam a snarky smile. “Happy Boxing Day,” he said.

 

Sam laughed and shook his head. “Thanks.”

 

Dean got back in bed, taking a plate from the tray. They ate in silence.

 

Sam kissed the syrup off of Dean’s sweet lips. He pulled back just far enough to meet Dean’s eyes. “I love you,” he said.

 

Dean’s eyes widened, but then he was smiling, eyes crinkling, relief and admiration painting his features. “Love you, too,” he said against Sam’s lips, and kissed him back.

 

Sam lost himself to the kiss, full belly warm. His thumb traced the band on his ring finger.

 

They kissed for ages, souls swirling around each other and combining, and Sam knew with a certainty he’d never felt before that he would love Dean for the rest of eternity, and be loved back for just as long and with just as much devotion.

 

It was their first real Christmas, but it wouldn’t be their last, not by a long shot.

 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> So, sincere apologies for the small absence from AO3 over the past few months--I've been pretty busy with school and writing original stuff. I've been writing a longer fic, too, so you'll see that sometime soon, as well.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who didn't give up on me during the months where I didn't post, and thank you to everyone who reads this fic. Kudos and comments are appreciated, and I always write back <3
> 
> You guys are the absolute sweetest, and I hope you have a wonderful and cozy winter season.


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